Quest for Alexis

by Nancy Buckingham

  QUEST FOR ALEXIS

  Nancy Buckingham

  Chapter One

  As I turned the corner of Madison Avenue and Forty-second Street, I faced a bitter wind blowing across town. A scatter of snowflakes whirled by, stinging my cheeks. I shivered, hunching deeper into my coat. I’d planned to use my lunch hour choosing a cocktail dress for a party the agency was throwing, but the icy wind changed my mind. Tomorrow would have to do.

  I dived into the nearest lunch counter and ordered coffee and a corned beef sandwich. It seemed that everyone in Manhattan had the same idea. The place was crammed. But I squeezed in beside a weather-beaten little man who was wolfing a hot dog as if it was his first food in days. Idly, as I sat sipping my scalding coffee, I scanned his newspaper with him.

  The front page screamed the usual political crisis. I hardly took in where it was this time and let my eye wander down the page to find something more interesting. A small headline caught and riveted my attention:

  EXILED CZECH PATRIOT MISSING

  In the stuffy overheated atmosphere I went cold with shock, feeling the blood drain from my face, my fingertips. The pounding of my heart throbbed in my ears. It had to be Alexis. What other Czech exile would rate a front-page mention? But I could see only the alarming headline, the story itself coming below the fold of the page.

  “Please,” I blurted out, “may I have a look at your paper for a minute?”

  The little man stared at me in astonishment. Then, stuffing the last piece of hot dog into his mouth, he stood up and held out the newspaper.

  “Keep it, lady. You’re welcome.”

  My hands trembled, and I had to steady myself before I could focus on the print.

  Alexis Karel ... celebrated liberal writer ... dedicated anti-Communist ... vanished from his home in Sussex, England. The short paragraph added the information that Miss Belle Forsyth, the nurse who was employed by Dr. Karel to look after his invalid wife, was also missing. Police were investigating the mystery.

  I dropped the paper and stared blindly into the steamed-up mirror behind the counter. The story was unbelievable, fantastic. It didn’t even begin to make sense in my numbed mind.

  All at once I jerked into action. I had to get out of this place. I had to be doing something. I slid off the stool, tripping in my haste so that I nearly fell. As I emerged into the street, I felt the sudden slap of ice-cold air. Without any clear plan in mind, I broke into a run and didn’t stop running until I arrived back at the Madison Avenue offices of Brand, Feiffer, and Coles. On the eighth floor, I stepped out of the elevator and walked smack into the solid frame of Hugo Blair, the copy chief and my immediate boss.

  Hugo took the impact calmly, holding me pinned against him.

  “Gail, baby. Take it easy.”

  “It’s terrible, Hugo,” I gasped. “Look what I’ve just seen in the paper.”

  He released me and read the paragraph where I stabbed my finger urgently.

  “Alexis Karel. Isn’t he the guy who’s your uncle? The one who took care of you after your parents died?”

  I nodded miserably. “What can it mean, Hugo— saying that he’s vanished? I’ve got to know what it’s all about. I’ll have to telephone home to England and find out exactly what has happened.”

  “Sure, you do that, Gail. There might be some further news by now.”

  He walked with me down the corridor into the large room he and I shared with the other copywriters. Two of the men were there, working on rush jobs, and hardly glanced up. The others were all out to lunch. Hugo pushed me into a chair and picked up the phone on his desk.

  “Tell me the number, Gail, and I’ll put the call through.”

  Hugo was completely unflappable, always remaining cool even amid the permanent hysteria of the advertising world. It was the thing that had first struck me about him, the thing that had first made me like him so much.

  “Yes, Sussex, England,” he repeated to the switchboard girl. “And hurry it up, Maisie, will you?” Leaning forward, he touched my arm. “Who do you want to talk to, Gail? Your aunt?”

  I shook my head in a daze. Poor Madeleine. I just couldn’t bear to think what she must be going through at this moment. After her long ordeal in Czechoslovakia, she had no reserves of strength left to cope with a shock like this.

  “No, I’d better not speak to Madeleine,” I said. “Not until I’ve had a word with Rudi. He’s my uncle’s secretary. He’ll know as much as anyone.”

  “Try not to worry, Gail. It may all be cleared up by now.”

  I sat there on the edge of my chair nervously, and when the phone rang I leaped to my feet. Hugo picked it up, asking, “Who’s that speaking?” Then to me he said, “It’s the man you want.”

  “Rudi It’s me—Gail.” My voice was choked and tight. “I just read about Alexis in the paper. For God’s sake, what’s happened?”

  “Gail?” His astonishment was obvious. “I ... I suppose I should have let you know at once. But there was nothing you could do, and I didn’t want to worry you. It’s a terrible business.”

  “It hardly said anything in the paper, Rudi,” I cut in. “Just that Alexis has vanished and the police are investigating. What’s it all about?”

  “I wish I could tell you, Gail. I wish I knew. But we have no idea what happened, or where they might be.” There was a pause, and I sensed Rudi’s reluctance. “Did you know ... did the newspaper mention that Belle is missing also?”

  “Yes, I read that. But what does it mean? I don’t understand.”

  It was easy to call to mind a picture of Belle Forsyth. She was the sort of woman who makes a swift and lasting impression—tall and graceful in her movements, with gorgeous copper-colored hair which she wore sleekly coiled on the crown of her head. I remembered Alexis saying it was a miracle to have found someone so eminently suitable. A trained nurse, but, more important, a charming companion for Madeleine, quiet and never fussy, accepting my aunt’s unpredictable moods with patient tolerance. When the chance had come for me to work for six months at my firm’s head office in New York, I had been able to accept with an easy conscience, knowing that Madeleine would have the best of care.

  Rudi was saying, “The last I saw of Alexis was two nights ago when he went up to bed. Everything seemed perfectly normal, and he was talking of making an early start on the proofs of his book. So when he hadn’t appeared by eight-thirty yesterday morning, I went up to give him a call. But he was not in his bedroom. Then I realized that I’d not seen or heard anything of Belle, either, and the house was oddly quiet. I went to your aunt’s room, thinking perhaps they were in there with her for some reason. But Madeleine was fast asleep, and I didn’t like to wake her. After that, I searched high and low, and when I went over to the garage I found that the car was gone. I called next door to ask Sir Ralph and Lady Caterina, but they knew nothing. We all felt very worried. The whole morning we kept on hoping that Alexis and Belle would turn up with some simple explanation, but the time went on and on. By afternoon Sir Ralph said we ought to notify the police. They’ve been here ever since asking questions—and now the MI-Five people.”

  “What about Madeleine?” I asked fearfully. “How has she taken it?”

  “She doesn’t really know what’s happened, Gail. I mean, she doesn’t realize that there’s anything wrong.”

  “What?”

  “Well, you see, she didn’t wake up till midmorning, and by then it was obvious that something was seriously the matter. Sir Ralph and Lady Caterina agreed with me that the shock might have a terrible effect on Madeleine, so we quickly thought up some vague story about Alexis having to go off on urgent business and Belle being called away because a friend was ill. Fortunately, she seems to have accepted it—for t
he present.”

  In the circumstances, I thought, perhaps it was as well that my poor aunt was so innocently trusting, her mind quite without the normal suspicions of a logically thinking person. Alexis had never before gone off at a moment’s notice and would certainly not have done so without telling Madeleine himself. And as for Belle, she’d always seemed to be without any family or close friends, so it would take a lot of believing that she had left my aunt stranded to go rushing off to someone else’s bedside.

  I sighed. “At any rate it’s a relief to know that Sir Ralph and Lady Caterina are at Deer’s Leap. They’re so often away at this time of year.”

  “Yes, it’s a lucky thing. Lady Caterina has been wonderfully good to Madeleine.”

  I should explain that my uncle and aunt lived in a self-contained wing of the sixteenth-century manor house which was the family home of Sir Ralph Warrender. He and his second wife, Caterina, who had been a prima donna at La Scala, were delightful people, kindly and generous. In time of trouble like this it would be impossible to have better friends.

  Rudi cleared his throat. “Gail ... I’m afraid for Alexis. Do you think ... ?”

  The fear in his voice released my own stifled terror. I caught my breath and felt the skin tighten at the nape of my neck. I could not put a precise name to what it was we both feared—unknown, faceless figures, working in the shadows. Russian or Czech or British—the nationality was irrelevant, but all of them united in fanatical allegiance to the cause that Alexis had spent his lifetime denouncing.

  Their reach was long and powerful. No exile, in whichever country had given him refuge, could ever feel completely safe. He and his family would always be at risk. Even outsiders could be swept into the net because, innocently, they knew too much. Had these ruthless people come for Alexis, I thought desperately, and had Belle Forsyth somehow interrupted them?

  Suddenly I couldn’t bear to be three thousand miles from Madeleine. I wanted to be with her. I had to be with her.

  “Rudi, I’m coming home. The very first flight I can get.”

  “But Gail, ” he protested, “it’s such a long way and you have your job to think of ...”

  “I can’t help it about my job at a time like this. The firm will have to understand that I’ve got to get home right away.”

  Hugo gave me an encouraging nod and at once reached for a telephone on another desk. I guessed what he was doing. Finding me a London flight. Then, afterward, he would fix it with the boss. Dear, thoughtful Hugo.

  Rudi still seemed doubtful. “I don’t know what to say, Gail. Of course it would be an enormous help having you here, but I don’t want you to think that you have to come. I can manage. In fact, I’ve arranged for an agency nurse to start tomorrow morning.”

  “An agency nurse?” I exclaimed. “A stranger? Madeleine will hate that.”

  “Don’t forget that Lady Caterina is only next door. But it didn’t seem fair to expect her to do too much. I thought I ought to get someone else in.... Gail, I promise to keep in touch so that you’ll know at once what develops.”

  I realized that poor Rudi felt partly to blame, as if he’d failed us all by not preventing this dreadful thing from happening.

  Rudi Bruckner had been with Alexis for two years now. As a leader of student resistance in Prague in 1968 he had become a hunted man, a perpetual risk to his friends and to the married sister who had brought him up. Eventually, like so many others, like Alexis himself, Rudi had been smuggled across the border into freedom. Like so many others, too, he had arrived on Alexis Karel’s doorstep with just the clothes he stood in and a letter of introduction.

  Normally, Rudi would have stayed at Deer’s Leap only until such time as Alexis’s refugee contacts in England could find him a home, a suitable job. But Rudi had begged not to be sent away. He had proved to be an invaluable secretary for Alexis, and Madeleine had taken to him from the start. He was always wonderfully patient and understanding with her.

  “Rudi,” I said gently, “you mustn’t blame yourself for what’s happened.”

  “But, Gail, you don’t understand.” His voice was intolerably sad.

  “Yes, I think I do understand. And I’m sure there was nothing you could have done to prevent it.”

  He said heavily, “I keep going over things in my mind, Gail. Was there something I missed, some disturbance in the night, anything? The trouble is, I seem to sleep so heavily. Why didn’t I even hear the car driving away?”

  “You wouldn’t, not from the garage.”

  I broke off, because Hugo had raised a finger to catch my attention. He whispered, “You’re on an evening flight. London Airport ten A.M.”

  I nodded at him gratefully. “Listen, Rudi, I’m coming home tonight. Be with you sometime tomorrow midday. See you then.”

  Putting down the phone, I sat back in my chair and stared at Hugo bleakly.

  He frowned. “It didn’t sound as if that guy could do much to fill you in, Gail. What did he have to say?”

  As briefly as possible I repeated what Rudi had told me. “He hasn’t any more idea what it’s all about than I have. It seems a complete mystery.”

  Hugo hesitated, giving me a look that was unusually diffident for him. “This nurse of your aunt’s—Belle Forsyth. What’s she like? Young?”

  “About twenty-seven or twenty-eight, I’d guess. Why?”

  “Attractive?”

  “Yes, very.” Then his meaning hit me. “Hugo, you aren’t suggesting... ?”

  “It’s the obvious answer, isn’t it? Both of them missing at the same time—and your aunt a permanent invalid. Of course, the paper doesn’t say so straight out. But obviously that’s what you’re meant to think, all right.”

  I was so choked with outrage that I could hardly speak. “If ... if you knew Alexis, you’d never dream of suggesting such a horrible thing. He’s absolutely devoted to Madeleine.”

  “But he’s a man, Gail. And the right sort of age for jumping the tracks. What is he ... fifty?”

  “Forty-nine,” I whispered.

  Hugo nodded thoughtfully. “I can see how you don’t like to think it of your uncle. But consider the alternatives. That the Commies have got him ... or that he’s defected and gone over to their side. Honestly, Gail, when you come to think about it, isn’t it better this way?”

  Chapter Two

  Hugo drove me to Kennedy Airport.

  The snow, after intermittent flurries all day, had grown heavier when darkness fell, filling me with foreboding that I would never get away. I felt a great sense of thankfulness when at last I heard my flight number being called.

  Saying goodbye to Hugo was hard when it came to the point. We’d grown to be good friends in the four months I’d been in New York, and now I didn’t know if I would ever see him again.

  “I’m going to miss you, Hugo,” I said.

  He smiled down at me ruefully. “I’d hate us to lose touch, Gail. It’s been great knowing you. You’ll come back if you possibly can, won’t you? We’ll keep that desk dusted.”

  I stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “Thanks, Hugo. Thanks for everything.” There was a lump in my throat as I turned away.

  The plane was only half full, and I had no one sitting next to me. I leaned back wearily, shutting my eyes and ears to everything around me. I could have done without taped music or films. The last few hours had been frenzied, packing my things and settling up with the two girls whose apartment I had shared, generally freeing myself of commitments. Now, for the first time since the news about Alexis had hit me, I was alone. I could think.

  In all the dark mystery surrounding my uncle’s disappearance there was one thing I was sure of, though it did little to comfort me. Hugo’s interpretation, built upon the sly hint in the newspaper report, was completely and utterly wrong.

  Alexis was an attractive, virile-looking man. Though his hair was prematurely white, it grew thickly from his wide brow, setting off the healthy tanned skin of his face—a man who could e
asily pass for ten years younger. But it was well known that Alexis Karel was tied to a frail and chronic invalid. Perhaps, to strangers, the conclusion was inevitable that he had become infatuated with his wife’s beautiful young nurse, and they had run away together.

  But I knew Alexis better than that. I was closer to him than anyone—apart from Madeleine herself.

  My deep feelings of affection, of love, for Alexis went back to those early days in Prague, even before he became my uncle. Alexis and my father had been friends from the time of their first meeting, soon after Father was posted to the British Embassy there. It was a friendship that had led to trouble. The Czech government made clear their strong disapproval of foreign diplomats who showed partiality to critics of the regime, and my father was discreetly recalled to London. But shortly before this happened, Mother’s younger sister Madeleine came out to stay with us in Prague, and there she met Alexis.

  My mother often told me about it afterward, a story that caught my romantic imagination as a child. “When you fall deeply in love as they did,” she said once, smiling sadly to herself, “the differences of upbringing and background seem so unimportant. Your father and I could see what was happening from the very beginning. We knew Madeleine and Alexis would be married.”

  I remember how I hated it when we had to return to London, leaving behind the uncle and aunt I’d grown so fond of. At ten years old I could see no reason why they shouldn’t come with us and tried to make an issue of it.

  “Don’t be silly, Gail,” said my mother in exasperation. “This is Uncle Alexis’s country. He’s a Czech citizen, and his work is at the university in Prague.”

  So I switched my tactics. “Well, why can’t we stay here? I like it here. I don’t want to go back to London.”

  I wasn’t told, then, of my father’s mild disgrace— not until I was older, by which time he had spent three years or so in relatively minor jobs in London. When at last it was considered that he had served a suitable penance, he was sent to Japan. He and Mother were flying to Tokyo, leaving me behind at boarding school—and their plane crashed. My parents and the other passengers were lost in an arctic wasteland five hundred miles from Anchorage.